


this town is only gonna get worse

by nettlebird



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Female Cousland/Female Trevelyan friendship, Gen, I don't accept that the Warden never showed up in Inquisition and neither should you, Its only been about 5 years since the beginning of the blight because come ON Bioware, Kira Trevelyan's Terrible Bedside Manner, Laurel Cousland and Iron Bull get their asses kicked by a dragon, Northern Hunter Corpse, mentions of gross injuries like visible bones, playing fast and loose with cannon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:32:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nettlebird/pseuds/nettlebird
Summary: Laurel Cousland and Kira Trevelyan thought they'd never see each other again after Kira was taken to Ostwick Circle, but Laurel killed an Archdemon and Kira closed the Breach, and now they're here.A series of glimpses into the friendship between two Big Damn Heroines.





	this town is only gonna get worse

**Author's Note:**

> Laurel Cousland is my friend's Cannon Warden, who I'm allowed to play with because I only ever play games as Kira--I'm envious and deeply impressed by the many authors I see who have unique Wardens, Hawkes, and Inquisitors. For context, Laurel and Kira are friends who fell out of touch sometime after Kira was sent to the Circle and before the events of Origins. 
> 
> I've included relationship tags because while that wont be the focus of this story its definitely going to come up.
> 
> Title is from "Bloody Shirt"--I first heard the Bastille remix, but these chapters will fluctuate in tone between the Bastille remix and the original by To Kill A King.

Laurel Cousland probably, definitely should not have suggested to the Iron Bull that she would help him take down the dragon in Crestwood. There’s a whole list of reasons why she absolutely, definitely, probably should not have done that, one that gets longer with every healing potion Solas forces past her lips. Item one, _it’s a fucking dragon and she’s fought exactly two of those ever and both times it almost killed her_. Item two, lightening dragons and Grey-Warden metal armor do not mix and she has the agonizing burns to prove it. Item three, healing potions taste fucking terrible even if Dagna figured out a way to cut the astringent elfroot taste with the blackberries Kira Trevelyan manages to coax out of Skyhold’s garden. Item four, the fucking dragon _broke_ her _daggers_. 

They _fucking did it_ , though. The corpse of the Northern Hunter is currently being picked apart by a gleeful Hawke and the markedly less gleeful Varric and Blackwall. Hawke’s pulling the dragon’s teeth out, or something—honestly who knows with that woman—and Blackwall is cutting open the chest cavity to go for the creature’s heart. They’re going to bring a _dragon heart_ back to Skyhold. That has to count for something.

Maybe not enough of something, though. Laurel’s mental list grows exponentially with every half-sentence she catches on the wind from Kira, hunched over the Iron Bull himself, irate and trembling as her hands glow with healing magic. “—told you to keep out from under its tail but _no_ , you just had to do the same fucking thing you did last time—” Kira says, starting to list to one side as she continues to heal what probably, certainly would have been a fatal wound in the Iron Bull’s side if two of their party had not known both healing magic and how to fade-step.

“Boss,” Iron Bull says, worried, and holds her steady with his two enormous, blood drenched hands.

Laurel cuts a glance at Solas, currently trying to mend Laurel’s rather impressively broken leg, and sees his gaze has wandered over to the Herald, his ordinarily serious expression more grave than usual. “I’m good,” Laurel tries, pushing herself up onto her elbows and nearly passing out from the pain because, oh yeah, she did have a ridiculous amount electricity coursing through her system until about five minutes ago. She puts on a brave face and lies back down. “You can go help Kira.”

Solas gives her the most unimpressed look she’s ever seen in her natural life, including the time Wynne found out about the thing she did with the darkspawn in the Deep Roads which really was hilarious at the time, and you _do_ have to make your own fun when you’re surrounded on all sides by creatures who really would like nothing more than to rip you limb from limb, _thanks_. Even Morrigan thought it was hilarious and—well. In retrospect, Morrigan thinking something is hilarious is usually not a ringing endorsement of the thing itself.

_You had to be there_ , Laurel thinks.

“The Inquisitor is perfectly capable of recognizing when she has reached her limits,” Solas says, which is _hilarious_ , and Solas’ glare at her snort is somehow resigned _and_ deeply irritated. He snaps, “Warden, be reasonable. I can still see your _bone_.”

“ _What?!”_ Kira says.

Solas gives Laurel a look that perfectly communicates that she’s the damn fool who got her leg snapped in half by a lightening dragon, and she can tell her friend as much. Laurel glares back. Solas raises his eyebrows.

Impatient and more than a little wild with adrenaline and magic, Kira says, “Solas, we’re switching.”

“Very well,” Solas says, and rises to his feet. He reaches into the belt on his hip as he passes by Kira and forces a lyrium potion into her hands on his way to the Iron Bull.

Kira hits the ground next to Laurel hard with her knees, essentially collapsing into the bloody grass, and uncorks the lyrium potion with her teeth. She takes it like a shot, knocking the entire blue bottle back at once before dropping it to the ground, her hands up in the apparently requisite healing position as soon as she lets go of the bottle. Kira’s magic, when it washes over her and sets to mending bone and regrowing the tissue around it, feels different than Solas’ magic. Laurel doesn’t know enough to really be able to comment on the difference, and she’s distantly glad that Dorian isn’t here to go into a lecture about how Kira’s Knight Enchanter training gives her magic a different _flavor_ or what the fuck ever, but its nice. Friendly.

“You seriously fucked your face up,” Kira says. Her eyes are glowing blue with magic and it’s a little bit cool and a little bit terrifying, especially coupled with her notoriously terrible bedside manner.

“No,” Laurel says, pointed. “The _dragon_ seriously fucked my face up.”

“Your nose is still broken, whether you blame yourself or the dragon. Also, I think you detached one of your retinas.”

That does explain the pain in and around her face region, and the weird thing her vision is doing. “The _dragon_ detached one of my retinas.”

Kira seems to really look at Laurel’s face for the first time and the expression of mild horror that takes over Kira’s own would probably come across as more distressing if the Inquisitor was in her right mind, with her usual filter in place. Doing complicated magic seems to take that out of her hands, which is _really funny_ when she bitches at other people while she heals them but is _less_ funny when she’s assessing the state of Laurel’s own face. “Your cheekbone is broken, too, holy shit. Is there anything working right on your whole face?”

“Don’t worry,” Laurel says, slurring a little. Healing magic always makes her feel mildly drugged, and also she’s lost a not-insignificant amount of blood. “I _still_ have my lips.”

“At least you didn’t break your sense of humor,” Kira grouses. “Unlike the rest of you. I can fix this, but you’re going to look a little rough for a while. There’s not enough manna to go around with just the two of us.”

Hawke, though a mage herself, is significantly lacking in the healing-spells department. She seems to know exactly enough to stop major bleeding and not a bit more, an unfortunate side-effect of having a dedicated healer in her band of merry misfits in Kirkwall.

“That’s fine,” Laurel says.

“At least Cullen won’t see you like this,” Kira teases.

“Please shut up.”

Kira grins, wickedly. “I’m saving your life, the least you can do is let me tease you about Cully-Wullen.”

“I do _not_ call him that.”

“Yet.”

Laurel glares, as well as she can with only one eye working, and says something in elvish that she knows is probably a curse because Kira only says it when deeply, deeply stressed, but that Laurel’s never bothered to have translated. Solas, helping the Iron Bull sit up so that he can properly assess the damage to his back, makes a choking noise.

“Wow, you nailed the pronunciation on that,” Kira says, dry.

“What did I say?”

“Roughly?”

The bone finally finishes fusing in her leg and it suddenly itches terribly. Laurel grits her teeth to keep herself from doing something stupid, like reaching into the healing mass of muscle on her leg and _scratching_. She’s had worse ideas, but if she follows through on this one Kira is going to fuss at her and then its going to be a whole _thing_ , and also probably push her pain tolerance so far past its breaking point that she might cry. Which would be a little embarrassing, the Hero of Ferelden crying in front of the Champion of Kirkwall and the Herald of Andraste, even if the latter is her oldest friend. “Yeah, whatever.”

“You said _Dread Wolf fuck you until you scream for all the heavens to hear._ Roughly. _”_

Laurel tries to laugh, but it hurts too much. “The Dalish have some fucked up curses.”

“They do,” Kira says, mild, “but that’s not one of them. I made that one up.”

Solas makes another choking noise, and the Iron Bull laughs loudly enough for the both of them.


End file.
